IncGamers has posted a new preview of Demonicon based on the pre-release Alpha, and a live Twitch.tv interview.

Quote:

Peter: As you say, the rest looks fine. I was getting a bit worried when our host decided to introduce the game’s skill system by explaining there was a “haggle” ability you can dump points into (maaaybe open with something a little more compelling than beating a humble trader down on the price of a necklace,) but things got more interesting when he hinted at a trade-off between spending “gift points” and, well, staying human.

You see, our main fellow Cairon (Karen?) has a slight demon problem. The demon is happy to help him out with some super-amazing skills (and haggling) but in return will want bits of Cairon’s soul. There was a bit towards the end of the presentation where his face started to warp on certain dialogue choices, because he was going a bit too demon-ey. In fact … maybe that will perk up his voice acting, when he goes full demon?

Peter: Let’s mention the fighting, since that’s obviously a bit of a focus. We saw a bit of monster-bashing in a Monastery.

Tim: It certainly looks a lot more hack-and-slashy than, say, The Witcher; there was a lot of rolling back-and-forth to evade attacks. Bashing enemies with your basic attacks nets you Essence, which lets you use your demonic gifts to full effect – poison enemies, freeze them in place, let loose huge flaming novas, whatever.

There are four branches of gifts, each of which contains four spells, and each of these have various sub-points that affect that spell. Your fiery nova, for instance, can be further upgraded so that it does more damage or costs less Essence. So yeah, it looks like you can customise the way you fight.

Never heard of this "IncGamers" place, but good god…they need to quit it with trying to be cute. The double mention/joke about Haggling….really? I'm not defending the game (In fact, I don't like it at all) but that's just unprofessional. I've been writing professionally for over a decade and I have never tried to be "cute" in an article, even back when I started as a gaming e-zine writer. I hate foolish little blurbs like that in an article. It isn't clever, it just shows he couldn't mention the weakness of bringing out haggling as the initial comparison in a better way.

Alrik Fassbauer

October 11th, 2013 15:20

Quote:

In fact … maybe that will perk up his voice acting, when he goes full demon?

He'd become an NPC in any TDE pen & paper group, then.

Plus, people just cannot "become demons" in TDE. The mechanics don't allow that.

Going into a pact with a demon, yes, that's possible. BUt, as soon as he "becomes fully a demon", he is simply kind of destroyed, consumed, his soul at least. And without any soul, no character can be played according to the TDE mechanics (as far as I know).

But maybe I'm missing something there, because I'm not that deep into the TDE mechanics. I only know this from discussions and from reading about other
groups.

The demon wants to get the character's soul. So, haggling for it might be well involved, if it leads into the demon getting his soul. Anything helping the demon is good - from the demon's perspective.

But apart from that - a lot of TDE is based on German fairy-tales. You'll see themes of it every now and then.

And - there indeed does exist a fairy-tale about "haggling" about one's soul ! Or maybe even several fairy-tales.

I suppose there is some price you pay during the game for being a bit too demonic…

Alrik Fassbauer

October 12th, 2013 14:29

I do hope so. Because being demonic makes you less human in TDE. You can already see it in Drakensang 2. Just remember the pirate town and its surroundings. (Don't want to spoil anyone. ;) )

For those who have already played the game - the details on that :

Spoiler

In fact, that dwarf on in the harbour with his greed for gold had already been "infected" with the demonic presence from the nearby mine. He broke its seal years before the player-driven adventurer arrived there and hired dwarves to work for him there. Which the player must free during the later events. His greed was "demonic" in nature, already. At least the background book "Vater der Fluten" says that. The influence of that mine is so great that it works as an influence on people even ranged.